The great secret of digital photography???

skufuku

Hi everyone I've been a member of Smugmug for a while now, I've done a few of the challenges which was fun, didn't win, but fun. I left Dgrin when I got too busy but now I'm back. I didn't have my own site before. Now I do, and now I'm figuring all this stuff out. So this is as much a test to see if I can post photos from my site as much as it is to get comments and advice about my pictures. So let me know how I did.
Is this a good size to post?
About the photos . . . I went to the local Motocross track and had a great time. These kids race there hearts out. The parents loved these shots and I sold many of them but I would like to know what I can do better. This digital stuff is challenging and I struggle getting my photos to pop. After reading many posts I feel like I'm missing some great secret of digital photography. Am I?
Thanks for any help






























I hope I didn't post too many. Did I?:ian

Jeffro

If you've seen one red x you've seen them all!

You probably have external links disabled.

If you are going to ask why you see them, it's because they are in your cache.

Clear your cookies and look again.....

DavidTO

Check out the link in my signature for a tute on posting pics.

skufuku

You can't see them . . . I can. I'll try again.

DavidTO wrote:

Check out the link in my signature for a tute on posting pics.

skufuku

Can you see them now? I guess I am missing the great secret of digital photography.

Jeffro wrote:

If you've seen one red x you've seen them all!

You probably have external links disabled.

If you are going to ask why you see them, it's because they are in your cache.

Clear your cookies and look again.....

donek

The first one needs a bit more contrast and a boost on saturation. That makes it pop a bit more. There's no exif data on your images, so I don't know how how much room you have to crop. They could all use a tighter crop in my opinion. Many are also a bit soft on focus, or have too much motion blur on the subject. Panning is tough to do, but an effective way of isolating your subject. Practice and multiple shots during an event will yield better results. I see a lot of back sides. It's much more interesting to se the subjects face and expression if possible. Sports with helmets make that difficult, but I usually find that overexposing +.7 stops gets the face without loosing too much on the rest of the subject. If you shoot raw (Nikon Capture gives you a good tool for bringing out the detail in darker areas). Photoshop's shadows and highlights works too, but not quite as well in my opinion. If you want to show height, I like to shoot with a wide angle lense and get really close to the action. Your height perspective shots seem to be done with a long lens making the image less dramatic.

Just my 2 cents. Hopefully it helps though.

System

i love the quad looking like it about to take out the pole...

Jeffro

The first is washed out. I also feel you need to get their faces, not their butts. The panning shots would be better if the shutter speed were slower, and the bg was blurred more. It almost looks as if it just oof at that shutter speed. Most racers like to see either how high they are....showing the ground below them, or like a nice tight shot. So if you are shooting a wide shot...show the ground below. I find the crowd split on freezing the action, or allowing some "movement"...like the spinning of the wheels. I like doing both.

Watch your backgrounds...I know you have to work with what the track dealt you. Try to eliminat the wires and pole and things when you can. One pole can be more distracting than a bunch. Sometimes the dof or shutter speed can help hide those kind of things.

Keep shooting....because it isn't as easy as some make it look.

skufuku

Thanks for all he help. This was my first attempt at shooting motocross, and them dang poles were everywhere, if they weren't distracting in the back round they were casting shadows. They really kicked my butt. Honestly I didn't think about the backsides but I did get allot of them. Good info. thanks. The digital post processing is giving me trouble also, I need to find a book or a class or something. Right now I feel the best thing for me to do is leave my photos alone, they seem to look better that way. Thanks again I can't wait to go try again.

Jeffro

skufuku wrote:

Thanks for all he help. This was my first attempt at shooting motocross, and them dang poles were everywhere, if they weren't distracting in the back round they were casting shadows. They really kicked my butt. Honestly I didn't think about the backsides but I did get allot of them. Good info. thanks. The digital post processing is giving me trouble also, I need to find a book or a class or something. Right now I feel the best thing for me to do is leave my photos alone, they seem to look better that way. Thanks again I can't wait to go try again.

I shoot all my mx event photos in large jpeg, with no...that's right no post work. What I shoot is what they get. I set my paramiters in camera, and that's it. The rest is up to me getting the compostition right, the shutter speed, exposure and all that. I don't want to spend the time on the pc working with RAW for event stuff. Others do it different, so the choice is yours.

Keep shooting!

Bodwick

As has been said try not to shoot a rear view unless you want a scene setting 'into the distance' type shot of departing vehicles.

I would say shoot with both eye's open and follow the action panning into the shot you want. I have to make an effort to stop the camera creeping upwards and thus cutting bits of tyre off as they approach.

I'm looking for angles such as this with a small crop of dead sky but as frame filling as possible. Shot in portrait and landscape for side views. I shoot RAW but Jeffro is correct in that for events you should have your camera set-up as much as possible for in-camera jpeg shooting straight to printer with a minimum of post if any.





Bod.